I'm a beader, I live in the desert. Hence, Beaded Desert. This blog will be about my beading adventures, my trials and tribulations, my random bead-oriented ramblings. Someday, you will actually see project ideas, project how-to's, and finished projects of my own design. Mostly, I will be sorting out ideas and thoughts, posting reminders to myself, and such.
Enjoy!

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Fun With Wire (Thank you Eni Oken!)

So as I mentioned yesterday, this month is going to be a wire working month. I haven't done much with wire, besides the occasional sad looking wrapped loop, so I'm challenging myself and trying something new. Since Eni Oken's techniques and tutorials get such rave reviews in the wire world, I decided to start with hers. The other night I started one of her round pendants. I ended up making the frame circle larger than her tutorial, thinking that would help me work. But because of that, I found it more difficult to follow her tutorial, since I was working with different sizes and numbers of things. See, when I'm first learning something, I find its best for me to follow the tutorial as closely as possible until I get the technique down. Then the next time I can do my own variations of it to make it mine. But to start, I try to copy exactly, otherwise I tend to get frustrated and give up. So, realizing my mistake, I set it aside and said I'd start a new one later. But I had fun with it none the less, I enjoy intricate and detailed work.

Last night I decided to try a different tutorial, one that involved less beads and more wire, the tutorial for her Double Hook Clasp. It took me about an hour, maybe an hour-and-a-half. And I loved it!!! I'm hooked!!! I may just have to make some more. This first attempt wasn't exactly symmetrical, but it wasn't too bad for a first attempt. Even my husband thought it was cool. I had trouble with the heavier gauge wire, but all in all, it was a lot of fun. I plan to make another one tonight. I'm starting with inexpensive wire, as opposed to silver, so that may be part of the issue. But I want to be sure I enjoy it and will continue it before I invest in real silver wire. So Thank You Eni Oken, for venturing into the wire world and sharing your experiences and your ideas with the rest of us, so we too can learn and love the wire world. Artists like you are a wonderful thing.

I hope to figure out how to work my camera soon and get some pictures up, as this blog is quite dull without some visuals. Be patient, I'll get there.